Thursday, 13 June 2013

Taxon of the Day: Ahaetulla nasuta

Ahaetulla nasuta

Today’s entry for Taxon of the Day has been chosen for its prominence on the i4Life homepage. The i4Life project has been funding the management of the Catalogue of Life since 2009 and is now in its final five months of operation. The i4Life project is enabling a flow of names and taxonomic concepts between the Catalogue of Life, its supporting Global Species Databases and the internationally used data portals such as GBIF and EoL. So whether you are looking for DNA sequences, distribution patterns or conservation status of your chosen species, the shared and interlinked catalogues of organism names in i4Life will help you to find the same plant, animal, fungus or micro-organism under the same name in each data portal. This will be a significant achievement in the world of biodiversity informatics.

Ahaetulla nasuta (Lacépède,1789) or Long nosed vine snake photographed in Thailand, is a common species, living in bushes and feeding
mainly on lizards. The vine snakes are one of only two genera with horizontal
pupils. Together with the elongated snout (hence 'long nosed') and the ridges between eye and tip of
the snout, they serve as the perfect mechanism for targeting fast moving organisms.The provider of today's image is The TIGR Reptile Database which provides information on the classification of all living snakes, lizards, amphisbaenians (worm lizards), tuataras, turtles, and crocodiles.